


Reason

by videogamelover99



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Character Study, Other, Sexual Coercion, the day I don't write angst is the day I don't write, this looks like Fitzroy/Chaos but I swear its not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24470521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/videogamelover99/pseuds/videogamelover99
Summary: "When you transformed Silvia Nite, the fear in her eyes made you feel powerful. Don't you want that again?""...I kinda do."Chaos takes their time to convince Fitzroy that their power is worth it.
Relationships: Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt & Chaos
Comments: 10
Kudos: 33





	Reason

When Fitzroy was eight, his father finally took him with his caravan. It was hired out to a Madam Adaman Fern, a human whose new estate was waiting to be moved into. Fitz had watched the items get loaded in by his father’s crew, one by one: solid red wood furniture, silverware of the purest metal, a grandfather clock, and pounds and pounds of jewelry, carried in malachite boxes, full of amber, jade, gold and precious stones that he’d never thought existed. He’d excitedly watched from his father’s place at the head of the wagon, his father smiling as he calmed the horses down, stroking their necks. It was a long trip, passing fields and rivers and mountains, each more beautiful and grander than the last. Fitzroy, in his short life, had seen nothing father than his nowhere town and the local farmer’s market his mother liked to go to. He tried to consume all of it, to not miss a glimpse of anything they passed on their way. That night, the crew had a hard time wrestling him to sleep.

When he woke up, earlier than he ever had out of his excitement, the first thing his eyes were drawn to was the large, three story mansion. It loomed above the horizon, its marble columns reflecting the light of the dawn in a way that made them shine with early morning luminescence. The caravan pulled up in front of the large iron gate, and the crew got out, ready to unload. Beyond the gate, he could see a cobble-stone driveway, circular and in the center of it – a marble fountain, shaped like many outstretched hands, holding up the sky. In front of the carriage stood a woman, helped down by a man in a black and white frock. They slowly approached the caravan, stopping a few paces away from Fitzroy’s father as he got down to greet them. They had not a speck of dirt or road dust on their silken garments. Jerry, when right in front of them, with his grass stains and horsehair covering his overalls, looked a bit like a homeless vagabond. He nodded politely at the two as they watched the luggage get unloaded. 

“Careful with that,” the woman said softly, eyeing the people handling the grandfather clock, “it’s been in my family for generations.”

Then she spared a glance at Fitzroy, and the boy smiled wide, like he always did to grownups he didn’t quite know yet. His mother loved that smile, said none of their neighbors could ever resist it.

The woman did not smile back. Instead, she gave him a look, one that made him want to climb into one of the wagons and never crawl out again. A look of pure, unashamed resentment. They she turned away quickly, as if Fitzroy was not worth any more of her time, her jewelry clinking gently as she did so.

Fitzroy remembered that look well. He’d remembered it, because it was the same look that the students at Clyde Nite’s Night Knight School sent him as he passed down the hall, weighed down with expensive, barely affordable books, and ill-fitting clothing his dad had given him. It was a look he chose to remember, when his body was too tired to stand, when his mind was unfocused, when his muscles ached from the overexertion of his training, when his hands shook when holding the sword. He remembered it, and pushed on, past the pain, past the sickness, past the shaky adrenaline.

You could say that at some point, his tenacity had become singlehandedly fueled by spite.

At first, he thought Silvia Nite was better. She’d called out his potential early on, when he’d felled several on the training field, his shirt clinging to the sweat on his back, his face and hands covered in dirt. She’d smiled, and he smiled back, proud that finally, finally someone was noticing his potential.

He had run into her in the hall once, embarrassed and out of breath from being late to class. She’d offered him a helping hand as he tripped over his own feet, mumbling an apology. “Your class can wait,” she said, leading him by the arm, “walk with me.”

He nodded frantically, at loss for words. She led him through the hall of the castle, and into the courtyard. They walked side by side, and Fitzroy had to fight the impulse to lower his head. She breathed power the same way he breathed oxygen. He’d admired the way she held herself, above any trifles or misunderstandings.

“I hear you’re making quite the progress,” she said, stopping just under an old apple tree.

“Y-yeah…I-I mean-” he choked on his words, nervously wondering if he’d already fucked this up.

She smiled at him. “Breathe.”

And, on command, he did. “That’s me! Always, always punching the clock, working those books…” he wanted to jump off the nearest cliff.

“Good,” she turned away from him, plucking one of the flowers from the tree, watching as a few stray petals flew to the ground, “you know, a lot of the other staff members didn’t believe me.”

“Believe you…?”

“About your potential.” She stroked the petals with the tip of her finger. “You’re a talented young man, Fitzroy,” she turned to him, and grinned. “I’m glad you were able to prove them wrong.”

“Oh…I-uh…thanks, I guess? T-thank you.”

She shook her head. “Don’t thank me. You’ve got no one but yourself to praise.” He nodded dumbly. His chested swelled with pride. She’d noticed. Silvia Nite had noticed him. His hard work, his monkey, his time, his pain - everything was finally worth _something_. “It was very good talking to you, Fitzroy Maplecourt. It’s time for you to head back to class,” and she walked away, the flower still in her hands.

He might’ve felt a little giddy when, after one of her lectures, she’d approached him again. He’d noticed the looks of the other students, some sneers, some of unidentifiable pity. He shrugged them off, thinking them envy. It wasn’t hard, given how much better he was than everyone else at mostly everything. Magic excluded. A Knight didn’t need magic to be successful. A Knight did, however, sometimes needed a helping hand. Which was what Silvia offered to him, placing her long, perfectly trimmed fingernails on his shoulder. She was much taller than him, her elven features similar to his own, and yet so much more pronounced, regal. “I believe there are some people in the oversight guild I can introduce you to. You’d want to build up contacts once you graduate.”

He’d nodded, already having thought of that for months now. Because even though his kingdom, Goodcastle – was already lined up for his taking, something told him broadening his scope was a wise decision.

She let go, stepping back toward her desk. “Meet me at my office tomorrow afternoon. There, we can continue this discussion.”

He should have suspected something, then. But he was too much of a _fucking_ idiot, wasn’t he? And the opportunity seemed so close. Silvia Nite had tossed in the bait, and he’d fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.

But when the time came, and he poked his head into her office, even he could tell that something was wrong. The window blinds were down, and as Silvia walked up to greet him, shaking his hand, and reached over his shoulder to lock the door behind him. A part of him _knew_ , when she told him to sit down, not letting go, smiling, her praise oozing out of her lips like molasses. Suddenly agitated, he shifted in his seat, all to aware of her gaze wandering all over him. They sat down, Silvia behind a redwood desk, him sitting across from her, hands writhing on his lap.

“I can help you, of course,” she’d said, her tone matter of fact, “graduate faster. Find important people to introduce you to. It would be an opportunity you wouldn’t want to miss.” Then she sat back in her leather chair, adorned with the carved faces of eternally hungry wooden lions, and said: “I am a busy woman, though. It would take quite a lot of my schedule to do that for you, do you understand?”

He’d nodded. And flinched, when her hand covered his, and the whole time, his mind was screaming that it was _wrong, wrong, wrong_. He felt trapped. Under her gaze, in the shadows of the closed blinds, by the lock in the door behind him.

Then her other hand moved to grasp the back of his neck. “So you’ll have to do something for me as well, Fitzroy.” Then she tugged on his collar, and he sprang back, his legs finally working correctly. He was breathing shallow, panicky, because he _knew_ that look. For so long she’d masked it under the pretense of kindness, with nice words and smiles, but at its core, it was all the same. The look of someone who thought that Fitzroy was nothing more than the mud under their shoes. He’d been such an idiot not to see it sooner.

The older woman moved back in surprise, her hand still hovering in the air. Then her gaze narrowed.

“Y-you…” he tried to find his voice, but it was shaking to much for him to form any words. He suddenly wanted to laugh. “You think…you can just…I will _never_ -” He’d never felt so angry in his life.

Her eyebrows rose up, perfect arches she’d no doubt spent hours of her precious time on. She eyed him up and down, standing from her chair, and he bristled, his hands turning to fists. No matter how skilled in combat he’d become, he would still be no match for her. She held his gaze.

Then she sat down, waving a hand. “Alright. You may go, then.”

He practically flung himself at the door, turning the lock with his shaking fingers. “And Fitzroy?” she called, just as he was about to leave, with a tone that sent a chill down his spine, “not everyone is as accommodating as I am.”

After that day, the calls of _kissass_ and _teacher’s pet_ turned to something much more vicious. He made himself suck it up and carried on. Only a few months before graduation. He could make it. After all, one thing was made clear to him. There would be no one who would ever respect him, not until he left this school behind.

The anger didn’t go away. It festered, with every jeer, every rude gesture, every pitying gaze the other teacher had sent his way, and had boiled over when he had to face her once again, in her magic class, trying to light this goddamn candle that would not light _the piece of shit-_

Her gaze dug into him, ignoring all the other students, the resentful look so clear, so unmistakably present, and if he could just _light_ this _goddamned candle_ so he could _leave_ -

And then the whole room exploded. And moments later, when Silvia Nite was turned back to normal, her gaze wide-eyed and terrified, Fitzroy felt like he couldn’t get enough of the fear in her eyes.

Chaos paused the memory, turning it over in their hand. “You were angry. Good.” They smiled at him, hovering over his shoulder as he looked alongside them. Their shifting head of hair wrapped around his shoulders like a cloud, undulating and free. “You had every right to be.” Their voice was like a whisper of the wind. “She wanted to possess you, control you. Her position gave her the illusion that she could own you. And she was wrong.” They waved their hand, and the memory faded from view, melting around them like sugar. “This is why I chose you.”

They came to him every night, his nonsensical half-dreams replaced by their strange, every-shifting world. Sometimes it was a room in a castle. Sometimes they were out in the woods. And sometimes, the two of them would just sit there, on the foot of his bed, his own body sleeping fitfully behind them. Chaos looked delighted whenever they came. They were possessive, but not in the way people were. They lacked that _look_ in their eyes. They knew they owned him, but not from any illusion of power, not because they thought they were better than him. They owned him, simply because they _could_.

They turned to him them, smiling, but not amused. Reveling in their truth. “With my **power** , there will never be such humiliation. Isn’t that reason enough?”

**Author's Note:**

> I love Chaos. So much. And Fitzroy is such an interesting character, I love how morally unstable Griffin made him. 
> 
> Find me on Tumblr @videogamelover99


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